From The Time Machine to Kirk and Uhura‘s unprecedented kiss, speculative fiction has often concerned itself with breaking barriers and exploring issues of race, inequality, and injustice. The fantastical elements of genre, from alien beings to magical ones, allow writers to confront controversial issues in metaphor, granting them a subversive power that often goes unheralded. On this, the […]
From The Time Machine to Kirk and Uhura‘s unprecedented kiss, speculative fiction has long concerned itself with breaking barriers and exploring issues of race, inequality, and injustice. The fantastical elements of genre, from alien beings to magical ones, allow writers to confront controversial issues in metaphor, granting them a subversive power that often goes unheralded. On this, the […]
In writing her new novel Paris Adrift (out this week from Solaris), author E.J. Swift wanted to honor the past without repeating it—always a tricky proposition when we’re talking time travel, that most familiar of sci-fi tropes. She joins us today to talk about how she put her own spin on futzing about with the […]
Science fiction is all about showing us possible futures: futures where we all wear gray jumpsuits and sit around waiting for moody teenagers to spark a revolution, futures where all our food is made of people, futures where “space pirate” is a viable career path. Part of crafting those futures is imagining technology believable enough to excite […]